Google says there are 14,200 links with the keyword pumpkin on this forum.

293 HBT pumpkin links were created in the past 30 days.

This does not include Jolly Pumpkin.

And there will be a TON more before Halloween. This is the time folks who know better start making theirs to have it ready, and folks will be talking about them and doing them til turkey day.

But most of them, are folks asking for critiques of their individual recipes, not usually asking (for the most part) the same basic question.

And then we're going to have our usual onslaught of Christmas or other holiday beers. Just like there were a ton of Saison threads in the spring.

No one seems to complain that there's 50 million Ipa threads on here do they?

To me it's not the same as there being something in the "regular" media about beer and everyone wanting to share the info, without thinking or looking to see that other people, even minutes before, had the same idea.

That's the same thing to me as people going to a baseball game and leaving at the start of the 8th inning, or leaving early on Labor Day from the cottage, to "beat traffic" and getting caught in a jam up on the freeway or at the parking deck. It's thinking they are the only people to have an idea, not realizing that noone's unique....

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Sometimes an especially knowledgeable person makes a long and detailed response to a question. They may include photos or charts or links.
You can't expect them to take the time to do that every time the same question is asked.

You are missing out on a lot of great information if you don't use the search function first.

Plus, it clutters up the forums to have lots of repeat threads. And it makes searching harder because there are many threads, and a lot of them are just repeats of earlier similar threads.

I come here to learn. If someone else asked the same question last year (Whats a good grain mill?) chances are the answer is still valid today.

Even worse is when a poster self bumps their thread (already duplicated 27 times) because no one responds.

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How do I make a starter? Simple, take a cup of sugar and add it to 2 liters of water and pour in your yeast.

Don't bother making a starter, my beer always ferments. Its true it may have a high final gravity, but that's unrelated.

If you use dry yeast, just pour it into the wort, don't bother rehydrating. My yeast always ferments, though the final gravity is high.

Help - stuck fermentation. Make a starter (see above) and dump it in.

My sparge is stuck. I drained my wort quickly and have a cheapo false bottom. Oh yeah, I mashed at 160, is that OK?

Should I dump my beer, it doesn't taste so good at bottling time? I aged it 5 days before bottling, should I have waited the full 7 days?

My tap water is 80 degrees how come I can't chill my wort to 65 with a chiller?

I fermented at 80 degrees for a week, and my beer tastes bad. I wonder why?

It's the eternal question - Which came first the overwelming search results or the duplicated threads? I don't know the answer.

One leads to the other. The inability to find something easily results in a question being asked which results in more duplicate threads.

It's more than information though. There is also a social aspect at work here. People like to interract, and the forum is a way of doing it. Maybe no one else in their lives cares about this hobby. There are people here that do care and like to talk about it. You don't want to take that away. That's kind of the point of a forum. Without the conversation you may as well just read a book or browse a WIKI.

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